M.A. Oral History at Columbia University in the City of New York
As of August 2023, I am an M.A. Oral History candidate at Columbia University in the City of New York. In 2019, I earned my M.F.A. at The City College of New York, where my thesis project was a parafictional exhibition about a Salvadoran diaspora woman's journey from girlhood in the aftermath of El Salvador's civil war during the Internet age. Media included video, photography, sculpture, installation, performance, and poetry. I was awarded the Helen & Sydney Jacoff Scholarship for further graduate study, CCNY's highest award for graduating students. However, I decided to postpone my studies due to the pandemic and the development of my play "Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares" and feature film Sirena's Gallery. My thesis at Columbia focuses on non-fiction documentary work related to Salvadoran diaspora living on the East Coast of the United States. In addition to my coursework, I am a Digital Humanities Fellow at Columbia's Incite Institute, contributing cultural essays to the "I See My Light Shining" project.
Adriana Ascencio, narrator for thesis documentary
Here are my Fall 2023 courses:
• Oral History Program: Fieldwork, Production, and Archiving
• Oral History Program: Oral History Workshop
• Oral History Program: Roots & Branches of Oral History
• Spanish Department: Collective Trauma, Testimony & Trauma
• Journalism Department: The Written Word - Feature Writing
My most substantial project coming out of Fall 2023 coursework is the feature-length experimental documentary La Gringa Guanaca. (This is not the same film I am making for my thesis, tentatively called The Flight of the Torogoz.)
• Oral History Program: Fieldwork, Production, and Archiving
• Oral History Program: Oral History Workshop
• Oral History Program: Roots & Branches of Oral History
• Spanish Department: Collective Trauma, Testimony & Trauma
• Journalism Department: The Written Word - Feature Writing
My most substantial project coming out of Fall 2023 coursework is the feature-length experimental documentary La Gringa Guanaca. (This is not the same film I am making for my thesis, tentatively called The Flight of the Torogoz.)
Photo from documentary work related to gentrification in Brooklyn
Anticipated Spring 2024 coursework will cover indigenous oral tradition, visual/multimedia storytelling, fiction writing, curating oral history, and economic development in Latin America.
